Why no-one must ever see my Notes to self
THERE’S an app on my phone that knows more about me than any other. It’s not Facebook, despite the targeted ads, it’s not Monzo (though please don’t judge my lockdown shopping habits), it’s not even my camera roll. The most dangerous app of all? That unencrypted, innocent-looking yellow-topped icon that is Apple Notes. If you don’t believe me, a dare: open yours and ask the colleague sitting closest to read it all aloud. Didn’t think so.
It seems you and I aren’t alone in our note-keeping secret. Everyone’s favourite whodunit is back in the headlines as Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy enter the next instalment of their Wagtha Christie battle: a £1 million defamation lawsuit in the High Court. We all have our favourite part (the made-up stories, the detective work, the ellipsis),
Rebecca Vardy’s use of Apple Notes is my favourite part of the Wagatha Christie battle — she wrote a masterpiece
but mine is the method of ice-cold delivery. In her hour of darkness, Vardy retreated to the place most of us go in times of desperation: that safe filing cabinet of a space, in among the shopping lists, where you can draft letters to your ex or rants to your boss without the terror of accidentally hitting send.
The beauty is that she did hit send. Vardy’s response could have come days later in the form of a heavily lawyered statement. Instead, we were gifted a masterpiece in just 30 minutes. “As I have just said to you on the phone, I wish you had called me...” began her reply, ending with a heartbreak emoji. It was a public manifestation of that very private thing we’ve all done in a heated moment: drafting a message in Apple Notes before careful copy-andpasting. There’s a comfort in knowing the rich and famous do the same.
Vardy isn’t alone. When Taylor Swift shared a Notes statement during her feud with Kanye West, the “search” function in the corner suggests she’d predrafted it, and singer Matt Healy from The 1975 said in an interview: “I’d sooner have somebody read every text message I’ve ever sent than my Notes. There’s some really personal sh*t in there.”
Apple lets you lock individual notes, but why isn’t the app under a password? If you’re like me, it’s a place to scribble Instagram caption ideas, restaurants to visit and private rambles. I never go back and security-check it.
While techies call for better Zoom encryption and lawyers fuss over access to Vardy’s Instagram, this is the real privacy loophole. Take my banking app or look over my shoulder at iMessage any day, but please, Gods of Apple, never let anyone see my Notes.